Second Road Trip

Dear Supporters,


We're back at the Academy this morning and we are about to head off to Chattanooga, TN. We returned to home base to perform at the the Academy's Logos Theater. The performance was full of technical glitches, but again we had no forgotten lines, and even performed the first ten minutes without any sound cues! The Academy's director had us practicing up until the last 20 minutes, and then she told us to apply what she had just crammed in our heads! I can only say that it was a miracle that the program when t as well as it did, and many people genuinely were pleased with the performance and were accepting of the message. I even had to play another person's part for him while he was down fixing our tech. Thank goodness there were no lines, but I had never performed the part before and the character is very important to the story.


So now we have two real performances under our belts (the one here at the Academy, and one Sunday in Indiana) as well as our dress rehearsal that we performed in front of our peers. We have had the sound not work for one performance, the lights fail to start for another, but through it all the message has still be shared.


Today we will also be our last time seeing the South team, which had been using the Academy as s home base while they performed in the local area, until the end of the summer. We had a heartfelt goodbye last Saturday, but I am certain that it will be much more deep today. It is hard to explain the bond that we have attained from practicing, singing, learning, eating, and having fun whit each other over the past three weeks, but it is extremely strong. It took me so long to make friends when I go into College, but here, with common goals, interests, and faith I have formed friendships that will definitely stand the test of time.


Please pray for us as we head out today, and return tomorrow for one last performance here at the theater. Please also pray for the South team as they head out Thursday, and the East team as well, who are already traveling.


Thank You once again for your support, John Flanigan

End of Training Camp

Dear Supporters,

I have to say with all sincerity that it has been a awesome two weeks of training camp. I apologize that i have not been able to keep in better contact with you before now, but we have been extrememly busy. Our days have consisted of: breakfast @ 8, followed by devotional time, singing lessons :P , a little practice, lunch, a traveling tips session, more practice, dinner, more practice, chapel, then bed time.

I was assigned to the Midwest team on my second day here and I think we have one o f the best teams here. We have a great bond and work quite well together. As it turns out, there is only one play that we are all performing. I know in my letter I stated there were two, but from the information I had before, we were supposedly doing two different plays. That aside, our play has a very deep message that is based around the great commission. Our play even includes a bible story that I honestly believe I had never read before: The destruction of Sennacherib. I wish you all could have the chance to see it, but if you are planning on being anywhere in the Midwest this summer perhaps you could stop by. Just check the schedule at the Academy's Website.

Last night we had our first nonstop performance in front of our peers, and I must say, with all our little cue glitches, we were blessed with everyone knowing there lines, and no technical difficulties. I am grateful that we have that one under our belts so that we can continue to perform better in the practices today.

Tomorrow we head to Ohio, and the following day we have a short drive to our first performance Sunday night in Indiana. If you will, please be in prayer for our safe travel, and that we might see our schedule filled up more for the month of June.

For myself, I would as that you pray for that I might be able to convey the proper emotion necessary to convey the message of the lost souls around us to the audience.

Thank You again for all your support, John Flanigan

P.S. If you have not been receiving any email updates from me, please send me your address so that I may keep you in the loop!

First Letters

For those of you who have received my letters I want to again thank you for taking the time to read and consider them. I am glad that I was finally able to get the letters out, as I was unable to do so last week because of my hectic finals week at college. Thankfully all my tests and projects are out of the way now, and I can focus on raising support for my trip. 

I would also like to apologize to those whom I kept this decision from initially, and I hope that you are not offended that you had to find out in a letter. I simply had to be certain that this was the correct direction that God was taking me for my summer. I also did not want to speak about it too much until I had confirmation of my acceptance.

For those of you who go to Calvary/CBC, I will be there tomorrow (5/8) to answer any questions you may have about my trip. I also hope to stop by CCA, sometime early this week, so that I can speak to a few friends about the trip. 

Thank you again for taking the time to pray for me and check up on my progress, and please feel free to contact me if you wish to speak to me about any details of the trip.

Playing the Secret Chord

So what’s in a name?

I heard there was a secret chord, 

That David played, and it pleased the Lord,

But you don't really care for music, do you?

I was just sitting here, working on a name for the blog that I hope will keep me in touch with all my supporters throughout my summer travels, when Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah began playing on Pandora (if you don't know what Pandora is then I will just let you find out for yourself, its Awesome!) I often look for a deeper meaning in songs and when I heard these lines I Googled them to see that others thought Cohen was writing about. One writer thought it referred to Psalm 56-60, where King David is singing, praying, or crying out to God in his mikams. Apparently, it is believed by some that these mikams were meant as secret songs from David to God, that were meant to be a pouring out of David’s spirit before the Lord.

Perhaps the the only reason why these lines struck me was from being overwhelmed with college finals and really not thinking very clearly, but I do confess that personal contact with God is one of my many failings in life. Yet David had it all together and still fell from grace very hard....

Your faith was strong but you needed proof

You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her

Even David, who had a connection with God that I believe any Christian today would envy, fell from his walk into sin. If a man as spiritually strong as David can fall into sin so easily, how can we, with our busy lives on our Facebooks and cell phones, ever hope to stay in tune enough with God to fully realize his blessing or experience his power in our lives.

I honestly did not expect to get all this writing inspiration when I picked this name up from the song. I hope that whenever I am writing in this blog or just reading an old post that I will remember to keep my walk and talk with God as personal as I can….

Then “Defying Gravity” from Wicked came on Pandora…..Maybe I’ll discuss that one in a later post :)